The Long Loud Silence

reaching the other side of the river was the one and only ambition left in his life, his constant and only goal other than food to stay alive each day. What happened to his partners and the gun once he reached the other side was of no concern to him — so to hell with them.

“Okay,” he growled, “spit it out.”

“The gun,” Gary reminded him again.

Harry passed it over to his voiceless partner. “Give it to him in the morning, Jonesy, if I ain't back. Now come on, come on, I can't wait all night.”

Gary explained about the underwater cables, running from one shore to the other.

“How do you know them cables are there?” Harry demanded excitedly.

“I helped put ’em in,” Gary lied. “I was working with the Western Union construction gang. The cables are there, all right. We put ’em in eight or ten years ago. Just look for the signboard—”

Harry was off like a flushed deer.

Sully quickly climbed to his feet and made as if to follow, only to totter a few steps and sink down again. The skinny old man sounded as though he were crying. The silent Jonesy fondled the shotgun and sighed. Harry's passage through the field was an incautiously noisy one; so eager was he to reach the bridge and the cables that he made no attempt to conceal himself or mask the sound of his movements.

Gary waited until the last hasty footfall had faded into distant silence. He turned. “All right, Jonesy, I'll take that shotgun now.”

The scavenger handed it over without a word.

* * *

More than an hour had passed since the overeager Harry had shot out of sight, when the silent Jonesy spoke for the first time. “Eh… kid?”

“What do you want?”

“I'd like to talk to you, if I may.”

“You're doing it.”

“You didn't fool me, young man. Poor Harry — yes, but not me.”

“Poor Harry is a damned fool,” Gary retorted. He lay outstretched on his belly, chin buried in the dirt and the treasured shotgun cradled in his arms. Gary's senses were alert, his eyes and ears directed toward the distant river “So?”

“I have watched you, of course, since we came upon you. Army, weren't you — or perhaps the Marines? You could have jumped Harry a dozen times today — there were plenty of opportunities. And you could have taken the gun away from me any time you wished. But you didn't, you deliberately held off. Why?”

“I wanted Harry — or somebody — to tackle the river,” the corporal answered.

“I realize that. I realized what you were trying to do when you introduced the marine gear and yet passed up an opportunity to seize the gun. But why? Why didn't you swim across and let us go hang?”

Gary grinned and the macabre humor of it was reflected in his voice. “I'm no test pilot, Jonesy. I think up the ideas and let somebody else try them out. If Harry makes it, I can — later on and at another bridge.”

“And if he doesn't?”

“Then I'll know the soldier boys over there are wise to that angle, too. And I'll have to figure out another way.”

“I see,” Jonesy said and lapsed into silence.

“This gun,” Gary said after a while, “where did he get it?”

“From my store.”

“Your store?”

“A sporting goods store where I worked before the… the disaster. Near here, so to speak. Harry wanted a good shotgun and I selected that one for him.”

“Where's yours?”

“I don't have one — Harry wouldn't permit it. And I've never fired a shot in my life.”

A short distance away the thin old man lay on the ground, openly weeping and oblivious to those around him.

Gary asked in annoyance, “What's the matter with him?”

“Scared, lonely, lost. He is Harry's father.” The former merchant paused in speculation. “I suppose I'll have to look after him if Harry doesn't come back.”

Gary fingered the stock of the shotgun, tracing it with his fingertips. “This is a new one on me. What is it?”

“The gun? A Browning Automatic, one of the best of my stock. You'll find it an excellent weapon: full choke and the very best steel, the magazine holds five shells in addition to a sixth in the chamber. The retail price is a hundred and twelve dollars.”

“Knock it off, I'm not going to buy it. Got shells?”

“Yes, quite a few. In Harry's bag, there…”

“Thanks,” Gary said dryly.

“I'd like to ask one more question if I may?”

“What?”

“This afternoon when we came upon you sitting there in the field, fussing with the underwater apparatus… eh, you knew we were behind you, didn't you?”

“Heard you coming a mile away.”

“I rather thought so,” Jonesy commented. “While you acted as though you had been taken by surprise, still—” He broke off, startled out of his wits as the night sky lit up with a burning incandescence. The night was bright and white around them, reflecting the varied emotions on their faces. “Good God! What's that?” Jonesy sat up.

Gary froze to the ground, unmoving, searching the field with narrowed eyes. Both Jonesy and the old man were stiffly upright, staring at the brilliant light in the sky.

“Hit the dirt, you damned fool!” Gary snapped.

The darkness was split with light and sound.

A rifle cracked suddenly on the other side of the river, half a mile to the south of the field where they lay hidden. A heartbeat later the first machine gun cut loose to shatter the night with its rapid song, followed instantly by another. Gary listened to the guns, recognizing their make and caliber by memory. There came a flurry of whistles and the guns stopped firing. In the new silence a belated rifle spoke once and was still. Very slowly the hanging light faded from the sky and night took over its rightful domain.

“What was that?” Jonesy demanded again in a shaking, frightened voice. The older man had sidled near him.

“That was your friend Harry,” the corporal answered. “He made it all right.”

“They… they killed him?”

“Those guys weren't shooting fish, mister.”

“But what was that big light?” He was trembling.

“Magnesium flare — Harry fell over a trip wire and set it off, I guess. It means they got the shore wired. I'll have to remember that.” He burrowed deeper into the soil and moved the shotgun to a more comfortable position, preparatory to dozing off. “Yessir, poor old Harry actually made it. I didn't think he had it in him.”

So they had the shore wired — at that point. They surely didn't have it wired the entire length of the river — counting all the crooks and turns the damned thing must be two thousand miles long or more. The army didn't have that much wire. No — only the weak points were booby-trapped. They had wired the immediate area about the bridge either because the structure itself offered concealment to anyone attempting to sneak across beneath it, or because they were aware of the underwater cables and knew someone would eventually discover them. Such as poor old Harry — short of wind and not too sound of limb, but he had made it after a long time. And a baited trap plus patient prodding.

Why hadn't the army simply cut the cables?

He could think of only one sensible answer to that: they were still being used. Used, say, by those government people still alive and operating the underground fortresses beneath the Pentagon, beneath the rolling Virginia hills. And used perhaps by the survivors still clinging to Governors Island, the remnants of the First Army. The eastern and western halves of the nation evidently remained in communication. A point to remember.